El D

I think Dr. Aeon is in the same situation that Countess Crey is in - as one of the canon megacorporations of the setting the resources and technology they provide is too inundated and widespread, on top of massive publicity manipulation campaigns, for them to really be challenged legally. After all, 'Dr. Aeon provides perpetual energy to the downtrodden of the Isles (Power Transfer System), as well as an abundant artificial food source (NutriPaste), and tons of employment opportunities (AeonCorp/Architect Entertainment)! All that villainous slander is nonsense spread by so-called heroes who are just jealous of his genius!' /s Also yeah, the MST3K Mantra does tend to apply in situations like this ('AE is allowed to operate in the states because... the devs wanted a mission-making system' xD). I've started long digressions with my supergroup on similar questions, like wanting to know just where the Council/5th Column are getting all those custom uniforms. Does Icon/Facemaker do tailoring for fascists? Interdimensional textile factories in the Shadow Shard? Just reusing them via time travel shenanigans?

I doubt you're going to get a reply, unfortunately. Piecemeal retired early this year and hasn't posted anything to the forums in six months.

I think the core of the issue stems from how CoH was designed - as a cooperative game. From the get-go, the point of CoH as a MMO was teaming and working together, with the main (and for a time, only) content being PvE. Even after PvP was introduced the main focus was still 'sharing a common goal' rather than any real push to focus on player vs player. Blueside teams up to save the city, Redside teams up to do villain things, Goldside... gets buried under excessive ambushes. RWZ pushed co-op, then the iTrials did it, and then Dark Astoria did it again. It certainly doesn't help that PvP as a mechanic was just tacked on, any early momentum it had with base raids got ran into the ground, or that as a concept it runs pretty much counter to CoX's design philosophy. It's not like WoW where the player is joining a pre-defined faction whose long-established conflict is baked into the nature of the game - in CoX, 'heroes vs villains' was always primarily a PvE story-thing, rather than a core gameplay ideal. Sure, players could fight each other in certain zones or in the Arena, but 'Heroes Vs Villains' wasn't the point like 'Alliance Vs The Hoard' was. This framework severely limited CoX's possible PvP population and retaining the limited PvP population CoX did get was pretty seriously hobbled by PvP being delt a number of intense rebalancing updates (which, if I remember right, was basically seen as its own variant-Ehancement Diversification aimed directly at the PvP community's favorite part of the game). Also, it's not remotely the PvP crowd's fault that that kind of gameplay has never been CoX's focus, nor that the Live Devs attempted to incentivize that content by attaching special badges to it that just led to folks who never wanted to PvP feeling like they have to 'suffer through it' to get the few things they wanted... but when it comes to new 'zone-wide PvP' events? Given just how little of the game revolves around PvP and how most players don't ever touch it even with the promise of said rewards, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. PvP in CoX has always been a choice - one that works best preferably built by the community. Organizing big contests, like the Last Man Standing challenges, are fantastic and fun events but they're all also specifically 'join in please!' player/dev organized things within the existing PvP structure. Not moved into PvE content zones that have never hosted or are purposed for it where the only option for those who don't want it is to leave. That's why the Live Devs kept PvP to specific zones and Arena matches - it's always been an opt-in bonus feature rather than an opt-out requirement. Having it effectively 'take over' a non-PvP zone, regardless of how interesting the set-up might be, is just going to tick off the non-PvPers who were doing the content there (which would more than likely be most everyone in the zone). Keep in-mind, I enjoy PvP - I'll run through Warburg or RV with friends, and readily hop into Arena matches. I even joined in some of the community events back on Live, but it was always at my own choice to go there and do that, rather than PvP coming and finding me when I was doing something else. All that said, PvPers as a community do prompt a lot of not-always-reasonable knee-jerk reactions. A large amount of which seems to be lingering resentment from griefing back in the Live days, which, while it did happen (a fact that was not aided by the attitudes of certain aspects of Live CoX, like the PWNZ sub-forum <.<)... holding a grudge against people who may not even play the game anymore and letting that color expectations seems like a bit much. That doesn't mean there isn't some girefing still here on Homecoming when it comes to PvP but it's not nearly like it could sometimes get back in the old days. I just figure... It's been a decade. Whatever issues I had with some parts of CoX's old PvP community, they got sunsetted with the Live game. I'd be happy with more, improved PvP content - just so long as it's kept as PvP content. xD

While I'm not opposed to the idea, I doubt that Galaxy City will be reintroduced - either as it was or as a new zone. The HC devs are on-record is not wanting to undo anything that occurred before sunset if at all possible (aside from particularly egregious things, like tweaking the Red Widow arc). The complete annihilation Galaxy City via the Neo-Shivan attack was a pretty big, deliberate choice by the Live Devs and undoing that would be a pretty huge step, for... frankly not much benefit. Galaxy was taken out in the first place in an attempt to streamline starting content on Blueside, and what starting content there is currently in Atlas doesn't even get run that much unless someone especially wants to. Tossing Galaxy City back in as it was would just make it become another hub for DFB groups (except they'd be even harder to fill, since they'd be splitting the population between Atlas and Galaxy). On the other side, turning it into a Neo-Shivan Combat Zone would take a ton of effort. New mission content, likely as not a new task force, not to mention actually designing and populating the zone. And what level-range would it be? An alternate to Steel Canyon? How much new content would they need to make to have the investment be worthwhile? Or would people be satisfied if it was just a repeatable contact with Neo-Shivan stuff, like how RWZ and Dark Astoria end up once you've finished the arcs? Making a massive revamp of Galaxy just seems like it'd be a mountain of work to end up with yet another Blueside hazard zone that's empty 90% of the time. Sure, it might get heavy traffic when it first dropped, but would it stay that way? This is all just supposition on my part, of course. I've got no idea what all the HC Devs have planned or are able to build with the new mission editing and costume creation stuff they've been working on. I don't think it's likely that they'll just drop huge zone revamps on people's heads, but I can't say it's impossible. xD Leaving things as they are though, with Galaxy City accessible through Ouro, allows the folks who want to roam it free opportunity to do so without either putting in tons of work for little benefit, or further dividing an already limited player population.

A small but useful change for PI mission teams - and it would be neat if the Portal Corp interior map could get linked together and opened up like they are in the Aeon Strike Force, since most of that map is apparently made. Though, all of the lower level 'Portal Access' maps in Peregrine would need to be removed/disconnected to do that, since the current three are all separate underground 'rooms.' None of the inner doors are actually doors at all, either. Just real fake doors. But yeah, shifting Portal Corp into a sort of 'Midnight Club' set up with the initial trio as separate entrances who all lead into one big, conjoined room could work.

Thier brain does the same dodging motion inside the character's head that they're doing on-screen. That's how I always imagined it.

Right? It's definitely a great use of posing to get personality across! Also, something I really wish the game would allow an option for. I mean, villain stance 2 is right there. It even already works while Fly is active! Sure, the shift to and from attacking might look a little silly, but the Running Stances kind of do that already and they're in-game. >.>

When it comes to powersets for the regular gamut of ATs, I think if it's a fitting set for their role then they should absolutely get access to it. Titan Weapon Stalkers? Super Strength Scrappers? Yes please. If someone doesn't think that a particular powerset fits the AT, the determining decision there should be their choice to just not play that set rather than being a blanket restriction forced on to every player in the game. That said, I do still get the reasoning behind that idea. Titan Weapons doesn't innately scream 'stealthy assassin,' nor does Super Strength say 'technical fighter' - animation-wise, they both look like perfect Brute/Tanker sets. However, in a game that's all about customization and freedom of choice to make the character the player wants to play... Why limit them? Besides, Titan Weapons are no less stealthy than Radiation Armor, Fiery Aura, or somehow having Regeneration turn the character invisible. <.< It should be up to the player to find an interesting way to explain how the powerset works for their character (if they even want to - 'I just wanted to play an X with Y powers' is fine too!). Also, I find it interesting that this type of discussion only really gets applied to Melee archetypes. I suppose it's because they're the only ATs with a perceived 'fighting style' difference based on their roles - Tankers should be 'big, protective meatshields with sacks of hitpoints,' Scrappers/Stalkers should be 'lean, precise killing machines,' and Brutes should be 'reckless juggernauts of murder-death-kill.' When it comes to proliferation for say, control sets? Or support sets? Nobody argues that any set with mostly mezzes is more Dominator or more Controller. Or if a set built around team buffs fits better for a Defender vs a Corruptor. Their roles are much more clear-cut and so long as their set Does The Thing, nobody takes issue with it. Range Damage is Ranged Damage, Control is Control, and Support is Support, except Melee ATs are a bit more muddled because they're all Melee ATs (with the difference being in how the character melees). Assault Rifle/Dual Pistols are basically the Broadsword/Claws of Ranged Damage set, and I never saw anyone remark that Blasters or Corruptors deserved one over the other based on the merits of their AT. It was more directed at added concept customization - wanting Assault Rifle attacks from mecha gauntlets, or alternate Dual Pistol animations that weren't as extravagant. Which I also totally want, but that's for a different thread. >.>

You're both right, though I more meant regarding in-general concept rather than what the storyline/side-swapping mechanics provide - bucking the system and becoming another alignment or not, powers-wise and costume-slot-wise, still locked into being a spider minion. >.> Also, not sure I'd consider the Destined One thing bucking the system too much. Sure, it gets them out of the rank-and-file, but it's still a massive program controlled by Recluse for 95% of the game's content. That said, 'completely depose Arachnos from the Isles' was also never going to happen, so I suppose that's really as close as the game was ever going to let us get. xD

That's definitely an understandable explanation for it, but it's also still using the minimum amount of effort to make the VEATs work. Which, given development constraints and wanting to put time in for making 'actually new things' rather than just a 'modified version of something that already exists and functions perfectly well for the concept' I totally get. It's that kind of 'This does what we need it to do, don't need to go further' type thing. I mean, given that the entire archetype is based around 'Being a playable version of this group of NPCs' it does make sense to just use the attacks that already exist... but it's also still lazy compared to making something whole cloth like the HEATs. Not in a judgmental sense but just a relatable, productive sort of laziness, the 'only go far enough to make it work and move on because we've got a TIME LIMIT' kind that I don't begrudge them at all for. Also, as fun as they are to play I still find it odd that 'Arachnos Minion' was the epic villain archetype of choice given just how many folks took issue with how often CoV already put player characters under Arachnos' thumb. 'Players don't like being reminded that Arachnos rules everything about Reside and want more independent villainous content that's not contracting out to them.' 'I know! Let's make the epic archetype's concept as the player directly working for them!' That said I suppose there weren't too many other options for Redside factions to play around with that would allow for that much customization, and it does still fit the epic AT design scheme of 'signature faction for the player to join' (given Kheldians on Blueside, and the Devoured/Clockwork PEATs that never got off the ground).

Agreed! I'm all for patterns being opened up wherever possible on items that previously didn't have/allow for them. Moar costume options is moar costume options.

... This should 100% be a thing. A Monkey Fight Club mode where each participant randomly gets assigned to be Banananator, Thing-Kong, etc. Bonus points if it actually takes place in the Pocket D cage so folks can watch.

... shoot, you're totally right. I completely forgot, but yeah, that's what makes fighting the signature characters in RV so obnoxious. xD Thinking about it, if the PvP tweaks did actually apply to the enemy mobs it might make PvP content have a few less issues. Then again, that might also make the mob fighting parts of PvP too easy/not worth any reward as a result...

How would the PvP effect work? Does the event just toggle on 'PvP Mode' when it starts, automatically flagging players and adjusting the powers of everyone who enters the zone? Does it level lock the zone in-question or is it an 'all levels allowed' free for all? Also, this is happening in a PvE zone - it'd have to tweak every NPC spawn on the map as well, in-addition to the Nemesis mobs that spawned in. Or does it not even make the PvP power adjustments in the first place, and leave all the number values at their PvE settings? How would teaming work while the event is running? What divisions, if any, would the alignment system cause - could heroes only team with vigilantes and rogues with villains? What about folks running missions/task forces (or heaven forbid, hunt missions) in that zone? Would team still remain together while the event was running, or would it force them to fight each other until they went into an instance map? After all, if it's a zone-wide confusion effect, why wouldn't it work like confuse already does? There's a ton of hurdles to manage with this, in order to implement a mandatory PvP event that requires non-participants to leave a PvE content zone entirely. That's a heck of a jump from just going to a safe spot or rushing through, like you can do when wanting to skip the Rikti/Zombie invasions. Rikti ships and zombies can be obnoxious enough to dodge when just trying to focus on getting to missions - getting ganked by another player or one of your own teammates? That would be even worse. All that said, I enjoy the story concept behind this. I just think it'd work a lot better as a big Arena RP-PvP event, rather than something that actually gets put into the overworld.

I think the issue here is due to Hover's pose effect overriding the default Fly animation. It's almost like Hover was an early example of the 'Stance Run' powers like Ninja/Beast Run - toggling on Fly changes your default stance only until you began to move, while Hover effectively locks the character into that floaty posture the whole time (unless they do another emote, like /e yoga). You can kind of see the effect if you toggle on Hover while running forward; the character starts to go into the default Fly animation, then adjusts to required Hover-pose. Add to that the /flypose emotes flat out not being allowed to activate while Hover-pose is active (likely as not because the motions they do were designed to work from the standard horizontal flight animation) and it ends up that having Hover-pose on at all means that pose, along with all the emote limitations it has, takes over everything flying related. That's why the No Pose Hover actually allows the emotes to work - with the pose-lock removed, there's nothing keeping the emotes from activating. Whether or not that pose-shift could be applied to Fly itself as an alternate option... I've got no idea. As is, looks like the only way to keep the normal animations for both is to just switch between them. Because Hover-pose is weird. x.x

Yeah, mezzes used to shut off most toggles prior to Issue 13's rebalancing. Now they only shut off things that directly affect enemies (like Blazing Aura and the like) while suppressing player/team-buff toggles. Part of the big PvE/PvP power revamps/QoL changes the live devs did. Also, I can't really agree with the idea of making stun effects even better by giving all of them automatic -Fly. That'd make getting mezzed as a squishy even worse than it already is (and it can be pretty rough sometimes x.x) plus it'd make -Fly that much more easily chained provided the right circumstances.

Definitely enjoying what they've got so far!

Resummoning is basically rezzing MM pets at this point, yeah. Likely as not faster too, since you can just click and spawn them whenever. Besides, even if rez powers were modified to affect MM pets... that'd just make Howling Twilight leagues better than every other MM Secondary rez in the game (not that it isn't already super good). Plus, how would it work? Does the MM get inundated with multiple rez prompts and have to click on each of them? Does it just automatically bring back whatever minion gets hit with it? Also, if rez powers not cast by the Mastermind don't even work on their pets, what's the point of the change? Say the MM does rez a pet via their rez power - what happens when a teammate dies and the MM's already used their rez power to bring back their minions, instead of just resummoning? Defender/Corruptor/Medicine Pool rez powers don't make any difference, and the MM's benefit to their team just got cut into... for a button that effectively does something they can already do. Too many fiddly bits for a benefit that resummoning already provides. That said, I could get behind MM pets being targetable for post-defeat 'target corpse' effects like Fallout or Dark Extraction. That'd be neat.

Stone Armor for Sentinels (along with Seismic Blast) is pretty heavily expected to be in Page 4 given that profileration was one of the things that didn't make the cut for the last update. Not to say it's a guarantee, but it seems likely given it's a 'Devs are aware of/working on it' thing. xD

Actually, thinking about it... There are enough whip animations from Demon Summoning that combining them with a few tweaked Fiery Assault animations could make for a solid Demonic Assault set. I'm pretty sure some of the Demon MM pets have their own variant animations already for 'demonic fire' ranged attacks, too. Still not a full 'whip' set - or a martial/weapon-based Assault set - but it's probably the closest we could possibly get.

As fun as a full Whip-based powerset would be (seriously, I've got multiple concepts for one), there's a reason the Live devs only made a few powers for it in Demon Summoning; the game engine doesn't really support 'flexible' animations like that. That's why the whip itself is just Fire particle effects, rather than an actual wielded weapon. The coiling/uncoiling and the dynamic motion of an actual whip isn't something CoH's engine can do - same with stretching powers and grappling sets. It'd take an excessively massive number of tweaks and kludges (or an outright complete overhaul) to even get the engine in a place to support making that set, let alone the time to actually develope/implement it. x.x

Oh yeah, there's definitely some heavy 'Red Scare' theming with the Rikti. A hostile invading force, presumably once reasonable people twisted by ideology into a (literally) godless hive society that seeks to infiltrate, usurp, and/or destroy the true way of doing things? Complete with foreign weaponry, numerous internal warring factions vying for succession, and a funny accent? Really, the 'Earth is for humans. Let's keep it that way.' billboards are just the icing on that cake. It's like The Manchurian Candidate crossed with Independence Day. That said, I do think the comic book aspect of it being a literal, objective alien invasion against the entire planet rather than a geopolitical/cultural conflict between two nations makes the reaction more understandable in-context. It's not just a 'We think the Rikti might supplant us, so we have to have an edge' thing so much as 'The Rikti nearly did wipe out all human life on our planet' thing. Those kind of 'facing the possible end of humanity against a worldwide threat' stories always tend to go that route. >.> Also, corny or not, calling the new Lost faction 'The Found' is fantastic and I am 100% here for it.

If anything, there's that two-handed over-head smash from Crushing Blow in Titan Weapons. Given the hand positions for that animation, it might work. Briefly two-hand the Battle Axe/War Mace for the Assassin's Slash/Smash/Crush/[insert verb here].

Alternately, the sword set animations would make it look like it does even more damage. Stabbing someone through the chest with a hammer?

I can't imagine that Vanguard would allow a community of peaceful Lost - not because peaceful Lost can't happen, but more because the Lost by their nature isn't so much a community as a movement (Become Rikti) that is taking advantage of a community (Paragon's homeless population). Vanguard's entire purpose of 'stop the Rikti by any means necessary' runs pretty directly counter to that. Also, for a 'Lost Community' to exist there'd need to be a method of consistently producing the mutagenic drugs that create them. After all they aren't born, so they'd have to replenish their numbers via continued transformations of new members. If it was just a special, insular group of Lost who refused to change, didn't recruit more, and wanted to use their powers for good/against the Rikti? That I could see Vanguard taking advantage of, given their previously established recruitment policies of 'we'll take anyone who will fight the Rikti and do what we tell them.' That said, Vanguard does have the Herald as a public relations branch run by Incandescent. I could easily see them operating shelters or programs for the Lost or former-Lost - perhaps partnered with the Midnight Club, given their involvement in crafting the Lost Cure in the first place. It could definitely make for an interesting arc!